The Copyright Education of Sen. Edwards: Bingo?
Now, Hollywood, try out this scenario. A supposedly enlightened Senator running for President keeps wimping out on the DMCA and the Sonny Bono Act. So a pesky writer-editor-activist checks out the Senator's political contributions and finds that just one man, a playboy producer named Stephen Bing, coughed up more than $900,000 for a political action committee tied to the Senator. And now the plot twist. The possibility exists that Mr. Money Bags just might have a social conscience if the past is any clue. And maybe, just maybe, MMB will whisper the right noises into the Senator's ear and let him know it's OK to care about kids and libraries more than Jack Valenti's dreams of a permanent copyright gentry. Well, that's the real-life scenario up to the moment. Let's see how Steven Bing and John Edwards can wrap it up. Will they both Do The Right Thing? Meanwhile the plot thickens with the writer contemplating anti-DMCA and anti-Bono efforts in South Carolina, site of a crucial primary for Sen. Edwards, if the Senator doesn't live up to his rhetoric about education and democracy. More at TeleRead.